{"id":379153,"date":"2020-03-05T06:24:17","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T04:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=379153"},"modified":"2020-03-05T06:46:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T04:46:30","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-749","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/379153\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-749\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Load shedding:<\/strong> No load shedding is expected today, but Eskom is currently running emergency reserves, which means that the risk of load shedding is there.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>There is a plan for Eskom:<\/strong> Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says that the integrated plan to restructure Eskom&#8217;s debt should be expected by mid-2020 &#8211; but it&#8217;s not the only plan in the works for the struggling power utility. He said the goal was for SOEs to become self-sustainable, and in Eskom&#8217;s case it required an overhaul of how it operates, including looking at its contracts, how it determines tariffs, and even the benefits and remuneration afforded to executives. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/341177-the-big-interview-with-public-enterprises-minister-pravin-gordhan.html\">MyBroadband<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pension bailout:<\/strong> Cosatu has reworked its proposal that pensions be used to pay off Eskom&#8217;s debt, to make it slightly more palatable for markets. In a presentation on the plan, the union now specifies that investments by pension funds into state companies should be in line with their respective mandates, and should come with an interest-bearing return. Several groups are waiting in the wings to challenge any move by government to go this route. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2020-03-05-cosatu-tones-down-its-plan-for-eskom\/\">Business Day<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Municipal free-ride:<\/strong> It appears as if government has made no progress on addressing municipal debt owed to Eskom &#8211; because government isn&#8217;t even sure who is supposed to be in charge of the process anymore. Municipalities owe Eskom over R26 billion in unpaid debt &#8211; it was believed that the responsibility to deal with this was with an inter-ministerial committee on service delivery, but in a reporting session in parliament it revealed that it was not. MPs were told the matter would go back to cabinet to find out what&#8217;s going on. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2020-03-05-eskom-debt-relief-in-sight-but-elsewhere-its-a-sticky-mess\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Infected no more:<\/strong> The two South Africans working on a Japanese cruise ship who tested positive for the coronavirus are now clear, after follow-up tests came back negative. Plans to evacuate 151 South Africans in the Wuhan province are currently underway, expected to be executed within the coming weeks. It will be up to the company that hired the two South Africans in Japan, and their 10 colleagues, to decide whether to bring them back home. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2020-03-04-south-africans-who-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-in-japan-cleared\/\">TimesLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets:<\/strong> South Africa\u2019s rand firmed on Wednesday, finding relief in a surprise rate cut by the US central bank after a sharp selloff triggered by data showing the economy is in recession. South Africa entered its second recession in two years in the final quarter of last year, shrinking by a forecast-smashing 1.4% as a swathe of industries were hit by months of regular power outages. On Thursday, the rand was trading at R15.29 to the dollar, R19.68 to the pound and R17.03 to the euro. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">XE<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan breaks down where we&#8217;re at with the Eskom crisis; Cosatu tones down its proposal for pensions to be used to pay off debt; it appears government isn&#8217;t quite sure who&#8217;s supposed to be getting indebted municipalities to pay up; and the South Africans in Japan who tested positive for Covid-19 have been cleared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":299752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-379153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379161,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379153\/revisions\/379161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}